


Could It Be Any Harder?

by agentwhalesong



Series: Sadness [4]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning, MSR, Sad with a Happy Ending, Season 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 06:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15858099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentwhalesong/pseuds/agentwhalesong
Summary: Mulder is gone, but where is Scully?





	1. Hopelessness

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as part of the next installment of [Throughout The Years](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13883697/chapters/31944372), but since it ended up becoming something else entirely, I decided to post it as a separate work.  
> The title of this story was borrowed from [The Calling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWp6OuMtbTw).

 

She tries hard not to spend a long time in front of the mirror these days. She tries hard not to do it because analyzing her body and watching closely to see if her belly has grown makes her wonder what her child will look like, makes her wonder if he or she will look like Mulder, makes her wonder where Mulder might be, makes her wonder if he will ever be back. She doesn’t want to think about it, so she shies away from the mirror, hoping the thoughts will go away along with her reflection. They don’t.

 

She buries herself in work.

She has always worked hard, but she has always done so because she has always loved her job, because she has always loved the challenges it imposes on her. Now she works hard simply to keep her mind busy, to be away from home as much as she can, to see if she can find him, to feel closer to him in this office that was his whole life.

In this office that _IS_ his whole life, she corrects herself. She refuses to use the past tense when referring to him.

She works hard to continue his work, she works hard to make him proud when he gets back. She tries hard not to think that he might not be back.

How long has it been again?

Her pregnancy helps her keep track of time, and so does work. It’s the only reason why she knows it’s been 14 weeks since he disappeared, since he was abducted. She believes he was abducted, even though her rational mind tells her she is crazy. She has been trying hard to keep her mind open to extreme possibilities because she knows it is what might bring him back to her.

It is hard, but she tries.

She tries harder when Skinner tells her about UFO encounters that might be a clue to finding Mulder. His name is the magic word that turns her into a believer.

But believing can be painful sometimes.

She wishes she were the skeptic she used to be when she sees Theresa Hoese lying in a hospital bed because, now that she learned to believe, she can’t help but see Mulder lying in that bed instead of that woman. She can’t shake off the feeling that Mulder is doomed to the same fate.

She tries hard not to let the tears that puddle inside her eyes fall. She hopes no one notices when they do.

It is hard to admit it, but she thinks agent Doggett is right: as bad as she wants to find Mulder, she is also afraid of finding him. She doesn’t want to find him dead.

She prays for her thoughts to go away, she prays for Mulder’s safe return. She hopes it is enough.

She prays harder when she has another one of those dreams that are so vivid she can almost call them visions. They are always about Mulder. They are never good.

This time, there are all sorts of probes and drills in his body and he is attached to a chair, screaming. When she wakes up suddenly, she realizes she needs to talk to someone, she needs someone to convince her that her nightmares are not real. It is why she knocks on Skinner’s door in the middle of the night, and she is grateful that he tries to comfort her in the best way he can. She is glad that at least she has a friend to rely on.

The next morning, she thinks of how Richie will never be able to rely on Gary again because now Gary is dead, dead by the same wounds she could swear she saw all over Mulder in her nightmare. She thinks that what might have caused Gary’s death is the same thing to which she saw Mulder’s body attached.

She allows a few tears to fall and then pulls herself together. There is no use in thinking of what hasn’t happened yet. Hopefully, they will find Mulder in a completely different condition. She has to believe that for her own sanity.

 

That spark of hope gets stronger when they find Theresa Hoese alive and well. Perfectly well, in fact. There is a chance they will find Mulder like this, too, she reminds herself. She is desperate, she needs him to be okay. She will keep holding on to every bit of hope that she can, even if it seems impossible. She holds on to hope so much that she even believes Mulder is, in fact, standing in her motel room, looking serenely at her, before agent Reyes interrupts. She holds on to the hope that this vision means something, and that it means something good.

 

She is still holding on to hope when she runs like her life depends on it. It’s Mulder, they have found him.

She is still holding on to hope when she is kneeling on the floor near his body, when she touches his cold face and realizes that it might be too late. She is still holding on to hope when she runs back to Jeremiah Smith. He is literally her last bit of hope, Mulder’s last bit of hope. And her last bit of hope literally vanishes into thin air and then her world comes crashing down.

When she screams, she is surprised her lungs don’t give up on her. She is surprised she even has a voice to scream that much. She is surprised she still has life left in her after realizing her heart is gone.

She is surprised that she is able to run back to Mulder, not paying much attention to the looks of sympathy on people’s faces as she kneels in front of him and touches his face, as she whispers to herself and to him that this is not happening, that this can’t possibly be happening.

_Tell me this is a joke, Mulder. Tell me you’re pulling a prank on me. Tell me you’re not gone._

She whispers, she cries, she screams. There is nothing else she can do. This is how hope turns into hopelessness.

She stays there until someone takes her away, when she has no strength to fight back anymore, when she has no voice left to scream or even whisper that she wants to stay with him, that she needs to stay with him, that he needs her. She doesn’t know how long she has been there.

She surrenders to slumber after someone carries her to her motel room and helps her into her bed. She thinks it’s agent Reyes helping her, but she can’t be sure. Her mind is too fuzzy for her to recognize anything or anyone. She can only think that Mulder is gone and she was left behind. She can only think that from now on she’ll have to start using the past tense when referring to him. She doesn’t think she can do that. She doesn’t want to.


	2. Prayer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s dead. Mulder is dead and there’s nothing she can do about it.

 

“Mulder, you’re not going to believe this!”

She smiles to herself, thinking of how many times he has said the same sentence to her in the past.

_Scully, you’re not going to believe this! This is a picture of an actual monster!_

_Scully, you’re not going to believe this! Chupa Cabra is real!_

_Scully, you’re not going to believe this! Crop circles have been appearing all around the United States!_

Crop circles bring back good memories. Crop circles remind her of that day when suddenly everything was too clear in her head for her to ignore, too clear to pretend she wasn’t feeling all the feelings she was feeling, too clear for her not to sneak into his room and give herself completely to him, body and soul in the same proportion.

Her heart beats a bit faster with those memories, and she takes a little of the dirt from the ground in her hands to remind herself where she is and why she is here. Oh yes, she’s about to tell Mulder what happened to her this week and how her mind is now a bit more open, how she’s trying hard to be him or at least honor his memory. She starts again, afraid that she’s going to lose his attention if she doesn’t speak soon.

“So, we got this case where people were being killed by someone they said was invisible. I know, it’s absurd when you say it aloud, but hear me out: there was this one person that, for some unexplained reason – and it pains me to admit that I couldn’t find a scientific explanation for it – could make people actually _unsee_ him before he killed them. So, people died not knowing where their death came from. It took us three days to find a way of catching the guy on camera and, when we did, it was too late. He was only caught on camera because somebody else who was immune to his powers and was able to kill him and, therefore, he became visible. I have also been unable to determine why the other guy was immune to his powers and it’s driving me crazy!”

She chuckles, realizing the absurdity of what she has just said out loud, and she waits for a response.

“I wish you had been there to see it,” she completes after a few seconds of silence.

Her smile slowly fades as she comes to the conclusion that the answer isn’t coming. She knows that there is no way that he will get out of that grave and suddenly say, “wow, Scully, you’ve really changed since the last time I saw you.”

This realization kills her a little more every time she does this, every time she forgets for a moment that whatever remains of Mulder is 7 feet under the ground, that she is lying to herself thinking that he is listening to anything she is saying. He is dead, and dead people don’t listen.

This is the third time she visits his grave, the third week in a row. It’s the third week she does this to try and feel closer to him, but instead she feels herself sinking, almost wishing she was also dead. It’s too painful to handle, and she doesn’t know if she can keep herself together. But she has to, for her child – their child – needs her to hold on, to go on, to move on.

She suddenly realizes she hasn’t told him about the baby yet, that she’s been waiting for a miracle to happen, for someone to call her one day and say, “Mulder is alive,” and then she can tell him in person. If the miracle of her being pregnant happened, why couldn’t this other miracle happen too?

She feels the tears form a puddle inside her eyes before she lets them out.

_No, Dana, this is a completely different kind of miracle. Life can generate life, regardless of how impossible it might seem, but death… death is forever, you should know that._

Her own voice inside her head is too much to bear, and she realizes she’s sobbing in a way she hasn’t allowed herself to do in three weeks.

He’s dead. Mulder is dead and there’s nothing she can do about it.

There is nothing she can do except pray.

And she prays. She prays for her tears to stop falling every time she thinks of him. She prays for the health of their child and for the baby to look like him. She prays that her rational mind is wrong and that he will come back to life somehow.

She realizes that praying calms her down. When she prays, it is almost as if there is somebody out there saying, “Never give up on a miracle.” It’s almost as if she is hearing Mulder’s voice saying those words to her. It’s comforting.

She wipes her tears with the back of her hands, taking one last look at the name engraved on the tombstone in beautiful letters, letters she wasn’t expecting to see so soon or even see at all. Why can’t people live forever?

She curses mortality as she stands up and brushes the dirt off her hands. Then she takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. Is she ready to go yet? It always feels weird to leave him like this. But isn’t he everywhere anyway? Leaving his physical body behind doesn’t mean much when she carries him in spirt in her heart.

She smiles because her mom is always the one saying that to her and it is the first time she really understands what she means. She really needs to listen to Maggie more.

She turns around and walks toward her mom, who is standing there so quietly she almost forgot she had company this time. She appreciates how respectful Maggie has been of her time with Mulder. No questions asked, no judgment.

“Thank you for doing this with me, mom.”

Maggie shakes her head and rubs Dana’s arm, saying without words she doesn’t need to thank her. When her words are finally out, they are words of comfort.

“He is at peace, Dana, believe that.”

Dana just nods when she hears it because she can’t bring herself to say that she is the one that is not at peace.

Maggie wraps her arm around her shoulder and they walk away, leaving Mulder behind at least for now.

Dana can’t help wondering if she will ever feel at peace again.


	3. Ghosts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She sees his ghost in every damn file she has to go through every fucking day.

 

Five thousand four hundred and thirty-six, five thousand four hundred and thirty-seven, five thousand four hundred and thirty-eight, five thousand four hundred and thirty-nine…

A car passes by, honking, and she wonders what the hell for, until she realizes she’s not walking on the sidewalk anymore and it all makes sense for some seconds. She goes back to the safety of the sidewalk and tries to start counting her steps again, but where did she stop?

Luckily, she’ll reach her destination soon because she feels the blisters starting to hurt her soles. Where is she going again? Oh yes, to the only place she can call home these days, the only place that isn’t empty or full of ghosts.

She laughs because a skeptic talking about ghosts sounds really absurd to her ears.

But there are ghosts, ghosts everywhere she looks, more ghosts than she ever thought she could possibly see one day, more ghosts than she thought she could handle. And there is this one ghost in particular that won’t leave her alone, that will haunt her dreams, that will be around every corner, in a stranger’s cologne that smells like his, in every corner of her lonely apartment where they once made love, in that spot in her back that holds a stupid tattoo and that is also _his_ spot. She sees his ghost in every damn file she has to go through every fucking day.

She is usually strong, usually able to get her shit together, so it scares the hell out of her that a phone call asking for Mulder leaves her like this. It’s the pregnancy hormones, she tells herself, even though deep down she knows that she’s just human, that she’s just reacting to things as some other people do. She tries to tell herself that it’s okay to be sad when a loved one dies, that it’s okay to be sad when she is forced to say it out loud.

She’s tired, and her tiredness doesn’t come from having walked miles already or from the small extra weight she’s carrying in her womb; it’s coming from her thoughts that won’t leave her alone, much like the ghost of Mulder hanging around and suffocating her. She wants to let go, she really does, but how can she do that? How can she let go of the only person that made her believe in the idea of soulmates? How can she let go when part of him is inside of her, growing by the day, showing not only her, but soon the whole wide world, that he’ll never be truly gone? How can she forget?

She doesn’t want to forget, not in a million years does she want to forget. She wants to remember his face as it was, his hair falling over his face when it got too long and he didn’t care to cut it for a few weeks, the crack of his beloved sunflower seeds between his teeth. If she closes her eyes, she can almost listen. And she does close her eyes for a moment, hearing the cars go by and remembering those hours and hours on the road chasing after monsters in the dark, the hours that annoyed the hell out of her sometimes, but hours that inevitably made her fall in love with him. Desperately, irrevocably.

She opens her eyes again because she has to keep moving. It is the reason why she started counting her steps in the first place, because counting her steps helps her focus. But now she has to start again and she’s tired. She can’t continue. She doesn’t even know how she is still being able to put one foot in front of the other and push her way forwards one more mile, then another, then another… It’s almost as if he is here with her, walking by her side and saying, ‘you can do this, Scully, just one more step. I believe in you.’

Maybe he _is_ walking by her side; maybe she is just not able to see him. Isn’t that what they’re always saying, that those who die are never really lost to us? Or maybe he is not dead at all. Maybe she has just fallen into a parallel universe by mistake and he’s dead in this reality but not in hers. Maybe the presence she feels is really him, but in her real reality, a reality where she is missing and he’s looking for her because he doesn’t know she’s gone to a parallel universe.

_Please find me, Mulder. I know you’re smart, you’re going to solve this case and we’ll get back to each other. Then I’ll stop caring about the FBI, about stupid regulations, about my fear of loving you so hard I can hardly breathe. We can live together, we can raise our baby, we can be a happy family. Please, Mulder, just find me._

She feels tears sting her eyes and allows them to fall along with some sobs. The baby is not big enough yet to kick, but she knows it is what it would do if it could. Her baby is just as restless as she is without the one who helped her give it life, the one who helped give _her_ life. Isn’t it ironic that the one who gave so much life is now dead?

She rubs her stomach as she takes another step, and then another, and then another. At least there is some comfort, at least there is a reason for her to keep walking.

Keep moving on, keep moving on, the fetus in her womb is saying.

How is this possible? How is it possible that she’s going to have a baby? How is it possible that she’s going to have a baby with Mulder? How is it possible that years of her prayers have been answered? How is it possible that she found herself in a parallel universe, even though she doesn’t believe parallel universes actually exist? How is it possible that Mulder is gone?

She hasn’t been to the cemetery to see him a while. Maybe she should go and check if he is still there one of these days.

The familiar lights in front of her mom’s apartment blink and she’s brought to reality. How has she walked this far? How long has she been walking? Is it wise doing something crazy like this while pregnant? Her knowledge of medicine fails her, she can’t remember much. What she does remember is having walked like this only once in her life, in the beginning of their partnership, when she thought Mulder was dead and that her career at the FBI had been destroyed. Isn’t it funny that Mulder has always been the only one to make her walk like this?

Now that she is here everything seems stupid, she shouldn’t have come, what was she thinking when she left her apartment? Will her mother understand? Will she understand why she walked here or that she is not really her daughter, but an exact copy living in a world where she doesn’t belong?

She rings the bell anyway, and, surprisingly, the sound of the ringing is comforting. It reminds her of Halloween, of Christmas, of Bill being hard on Mulder during Thanksgiving, the only celebration they got to spend together.

Mulder. It all always comes back to Mulder.

The steps coming towards the door distract her, and it’s good not to think about Mulder for 5 whole seconds.

When Maggie opens the door, her face is full of concern, almost as if she has seen a ghost. Maybe she _has_ seen a ghost, because that’s probably what she looks like. She is a living ghost chasing a dead ghost. It sounds like something Edgar Allan Poe would like to hear about. She chuckles at the thought, before realizing she hasn’t yet said a word since her mom opened the door.

She suddenly doesn’t know why she came, or why she’s thinking of ghosts and parallel universes and all those things that don’t usually make sense to her. She almost steps back and walks away, but Maggie’s arms are wide open, seeming welcoming. So, she walks into them, hugs her mom like she’s the last precious thing on Earth, cries on her shoulder as she caresses her hair and pulls her inside, closing the door behind them.

“I know it hurts, Dana, I know it hurts.”

She cries harder, because she knows her mom knows what she is going through. She lost Ahab, after all.

It takes a few minutes for her to recollect herself, or at least to stop sobbing.

She doesn’t realize she is speaking until the second question is out.

“Does it ever get easy, mom? Does it ever feel like you’re not in a parallel universe? Because right now, the only explanation I have is that I am in a parallel universe and that my timeline is all wrong. I want to go back, mom, I so badly want to go back! I need this timeline to be restored, do you think it’s going to happen any time soon?”

She is aware that she sounds crazy, but she doesn’t care.

She feels Maggie’s tears on her hair as she tries to shush her, to calm her in that healing way that only mothers have the power to do. She wonders if Maggie is scared to see her like this for she was never one to show her feelings at all. She hopes she isn’t. She also hopes she is at least half as good to her child as her mother is to her. Her child and her mother are all she has now.

She is so immersed in her tears and the welcoming hug that she almost forgets her questions. But the answer comes and makes her remember.

“The pain never goes away, Dana, but you learn to live with it. You learn that the good memories are powerful, and that they can outweigh the pain most times if you hold on to them long enough.”

Her mom pauses, and the ten-second silence is almost too much to bear. She needs words to fill the void she’s feeling right now. But Maggie knows, she always knows, so she continues.

“Tell me about him.”

She is guided to her mother’s comforting couch and, before she knows it, words are spilling from her mouth, from her wounds, from her broken heart that will probably never be mended.

“I hate him for dying. I hate him for making me love him this much. I hate that I didn’t get the chance to say that I love him.”

Maggie rubs her arm, understanding, a weak smile on her lips as she listens.

And words flow out of her in a way she isn’t expecting. Her angry and painful words at some point become stories of how they met, of things he believed in and she found ridiculous, of moments when he made her laugh, of moments when she made him laugh, of moments of happiness she just knows she’ll never feel again.

She talks and talks and talks and talks. She talks until she’s exhausted and Maggie takes her up to her old room.

She sleeps it all off and stops thinking she is in a parallel universe. She sleeps it all off and realizes that her heart is a little lighter, a little warmer when she wakes up. She sleeps it all off and feels Mulder’s presence all around her. She feels his presence and says another prayer for his soul. She says another prayer for a miracle just in case there is someone listening.


	4. Heartbeat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And apparently she is right because he stays alive.

 

When the call comes she rushes out of bed, almost forgetting how huge she already is and losing her balance a little in the process.

She needs to get to the hospital, she needs to be there already. Why isn’t teleportation something that exists? Where are her damn car keys?

Maybe she should change out of her pajamas first. Or maybe she should answer her pressing need to pee. Maybe she should call Skinner again and confirm if she heard what she thinks she heard.

She realizes she is still standing by her bed, staring at her image reflected at the mirror, hoping that that Dana Scully answers her questions or tells her what to do. It is surprisingly the image staring back at her that makes her calm down and actually think. Bathroom, pajamas off, casual clothes on, car keys, car, drive, hospital.

She wants to believe so bad that it makes her wonder what Mulder’s reaction would be if he saw her now, if he were here. But he is here. He is here and she can’t keep calm anymore. She can’t keep believing that death is final. She can’t keep believing that prayers aren’t answered.

She can barely contain her tears when she gets to the hospital and asks if it’s true. Who did she ask, by the way? She remembers Skinner being there, she remembers Doggett being there, but her mind is so cloudy and so hopeful and so full of emotions she can’t see faces clearly. The only face she can see clearly is the one that appears in front of her when she enters the room. She can see his face clearly even through the tears that threaten to blind her. The only face she sees clearly is the face that belongs to a body that is lying down in a hospital bed instead of a coffin; a face she never expected to see again except in dreams or pictures. But is she seeing this face clearly or is it just another dream? Will she wake up suddenly at some point, proceeding to cry her heart out when she realizes nothing was real? No, this seems too real to be a dream. He really is right here and he is alive. She needs to check, she needs to make sure.

She places her hand over his heart and her own heart feels like it’s going to burst. He is alive, he is breathing.

She needs more reassurance, though; she needs to check if his heart is beating. She can’t trust machines to tell her that it is.

She lays her head on his chest, almost expecting to hear nothing, to find that her hopes and expectations were too high to be possible. But she lays her head on his chest and hears his heart beating so faintly one could almost miss it if one weren’t paying attention. But she is paying attention because his heartbeat is the most important sound in the world right now. She is paying attention because it doesn’t matter that machines are breathing for him – she can feel her head go up and down as his chest moves and that is all that matters for now.

She cries. She cries all the pain she felt in the past six months onto his chest. She holds him and promises to never let go. She lets the tears fall, she sobs, she thanks heavens, God, and whatever forces are responsible for hearing her prayers, for bringing him back to her. She has never been so thankful in her entire life. She knows his condition is not good, but there is a chance and she believes it. She has learned to believe in extreme possibilities by now.

So, she sits there and holds his hand for as long as she can. Maybe her presence will help him come back to the world of the living faster. Maybe if she wishes hard enough he will open his eyes and all her worries will be gone. She keeps one hand over Mulder’s and one hand over her belly for as long as she is sitting there.

And she sits there for a long, long time. She sits there until there is a chance to save Mulder’s life and, even then, she never leaves his side. She promises she will be the one to bring him back to life herself, she has to. She has to make sure he is alive and that he stays alive.

She sits there once again as she hopes the treatment is working, as she lets her tears fall freely down her face because it’s no use keeping them to herself. She is praying so hard inside her head that she thinks there is no way there is no one out there listening.

And apparently she is right because he stays alive.

She can barely believe it when his fingers move against her hand, when his head moves as if he is fighting back a bad dream and is trying to wake up. She can barely believe it when he opens his eyes. And when he opens his eyes, he is plain old Mulder, the Mulder that has never left her side, the Mulder making jokes about having lost his memory because he has no idea what she has been through or what he himself has been through.

The feelings are so overwhelming that she doesn’t know what to do with them. So, she just lets them come in whatever form they wish. They come in tears, they come in laughter, they come in brushing a lock of hair away from his face, and they come in random kisses to his shoulder and to his cheek.

She is never letting him go. Never.

He doesn’t seem to understand anything, so he just stays there, accepting the love that is pouring out of her.

Her prayers have been answered, her second miracle happened. She has definitely never been so thankful.

At some point, he asks her to explain, but she doesn’t even know where to begin. She tells him to rest and that they will talk in the morning.

She falls asleep with her head on his shoulder and a smile on her face.


	5. Peace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She fails to make him understand that believing he was gone for good for 6 months almost killed her.

 

She thought it would be different, this reunion of theirs. She thought he would understand and accept and then suddenly they would live happily ever after. She didn’t think about his side of the story when she planned the script inside her head.

She tries to explain to him, but she lacks the right words. She fails to make him understand that believing he was gone for good for 6 months almost killed her.

She can see that he is telling her to give him some space, to leave him alone for a while. But she can’t, how can’t he understand that? How can’t he understand that all she wants right now is to never leave his side? She just wants to sit down and listen to whatever he has to say, even if it hurts. She just wants to make sure he is okay. But he doesn’t want that, he has made it clear. So she just tells him she is going to send Kersh a request for his reinstatement to the X-Files and leaves him alone, closing the door behind her and fighting back the tears that threaten to come once again. He is back, she shouldn’t be crying. He is back, so why does she still feel like crying?

She goes home thinking about what it must have been like for him. She wants to understand what he has been through. She wants to find a way of making him adjust again, so why won’t he let her in?

 

She tries to be understanding for she has no idea what it must be like to come back to a life that is completely different than the one you left six months ago. But does he really need to act like this? He is being such a jerk about so many things that she has to fight back the urge of punching him in the face and shaking some sense into him. But she also knows that she might be letting her feelings get in the way, so she lets it slide. Maybe he just really needs some time, maybe he’ll come to his senses when he gets his job and whatever he thinks he lost back. Does he think he lost her too?

The understanding only comes when Langly points out the obvious. She can see his face change when he looks at her with questioning eyes. His eyes are saying, “Is Langly right? Am I the father?”. She answers back with her eyes that they will talk about this later, but she feels like shouting. She only lets it go for now because they have more pressing matters to work on, and she is worried sick that he has just come back to life and he is going to risk dying again for a stupid case he can’t leave alone. But she follows and indulges him because she has no choice. She has never had any choice when it comes to him.

 

He barely escapes from those trying to prevent him from uncovering the truth; she barely keeps it together while she is driving them back home. The tears come without warning when she turns off the ignition; the words come out of her mouth before she can stop them. She keeps her eyes on the steering wheel.

“I don’t know if I am able to keep on living if you die again. I don’t know if I want to.”

She finds it strangely funny that some of her most important confessions to him have happened inside a car and she almost chuckles through her tears. She doesn’t because she is too anxious about his response.

She doesn’t look at him, she doesn’t want to see his judging look. She doesn’t look at him, but she knows his eyes are on her, she can feel them staring at her as if she were an alien. Then she feels his hand on her hair, tucking a strand behind her ear, then his thumb rubbing her cheek slowly. She doesn’t want to look at him, but she does. And what she sees in his eyes is nothing but love.

His voice is calm, soothing, and it’s suddenly like her Mulder has never been gone at all.

“Thank you for never giving up on me.”

She chuckles this time, because she has the perfect answer to that.

“You taught me to never give up on a miracle, so I never did.”

She sees his eyes well up and a smile take over his face. She wants to kiss him, she hopes he knows that.

But he knows, he always knows. His thumb moves from her cheek to her lips and lingers there, as if waiting for a sign. She closes her eyes and kisses it slowly, trying to memorize his fingerprints with her lips, marveling in the feeling of having him so near once again. And as if in answer to her silent prayer, he comes even closer.

The touch of his lips on her forehead feels so good that she wants to stop time. She wants to stop time and pretend that nothing bad ever happened to them. She wants to stop time and stay in this moment forever. But she can’t stop time and his lips lose contact with her skin way too soon.

She opens her eyes just in time to see the look on his face as he whispers, his breath mingling with hers as their foreheads touch.

“I’m not going anywhere, I promise.”

She is not sure it works that way, that he can just promise to never leave, but she believes him. She believes him because his eyes are so pure and so full of love she has no choice but believe him. She believes him because there is no reason for her not to believe him.

Their foreheads only break apart when he invites her up and welcomes her back into his life. He invites her up and he tells her what it was like for him, how it feels to have no recollection of the past 6 months of his life. He tells her how it feels to have only bad memories about being tested and being hurt so much that at some point the pain simply gives way to numbness. He tells her how it feels to be back, he tells her how unreal he still thinks it all seems. He talks and talks and talks to her until she can barely keep her eyes open.

He offers her his bed when he realizes; she accepts it gladly. Her only condition is that he stays with her. She wants to make sure he is real. He accepts her invitation as gladly as she accepted his bed. He says he wants to make sure she is real too.

She falls asleep as soon as his head lays on the pillow next to hers.

 

When she wakes up in the morning, his arms are around her waist, encircling her belly, his breath is tickling her neck softly as he exhales. It is still hard to believe that he is breathing. It is hard to believe that he is breathing and that he is here. It is hard, but she believes.

She turns around in his arms slowly, careful not to wake him, and analyzes his features. She feels so happy that it makes her forget for a moment all the tears she has shed since she lost track of him.

She realizes by looking at his very real pouting lips that the moments of doubt are in the past now. Mulder is present tense once again.

He is back, she believes, she is at peace.

She says a silent prayer so that they never have to part again. She has a feeling that they won’t.


End file.
